Maple-Mustard Glazed Pork Roast – Now with Bacon!

This little beastie is a favourite of my wife’s. It has two of her favourite foods all wrapped up in one easy-to-nom bite; meat and bacon. And yes, bacon OBVIOUSLY deserves it’s own category as a food-stuff. And really, I’m not the only one to think so. There are people far more bacon obsessed than I and they’re knocking out some truly scrumptious (and slightly bizarre) bacon-laced concoctions! Need I mention Bourbon-Bacon Brittle ? Candied Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies ? What about the Jack Daniels and Bacon infused chocolate mousse? Heck, my own mother even cracked out Bacon Butter-Tarts for a art show she was catering. They were amazing, sweet, salty and just…so…bacon-y.

Just like this roast!

Don’t be intimidated by this, it’s easy. Super easy. And pretty damned fast to make, if you’re smart and remember to thaw the roast ahead of time!

INGREDIENTS

3lb Double Pork Loin

Trim off the fat – believe me…you’ve got enough fatty awesomeness going on here that you DON’T need this stuff

The darker the better. And don’t even think about using anything other than real maple syrup. None of that fake crap in the plastic squeezy bottle. Use that sh!t and we can’t be friends anymore. I’m serious.

1/8 cup dark-brown sugar

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 325F. Grab your roasting pan, and for easy clean up you can line it with foil, or just hope someone else is doing the dishes. If you’ve got one that fits, plop a rack into the bottom of your lined pan – this helps the bacon crisp up on all sides and stops it from sitting in all the bacon fat.

Mix everything except the pork, bacon, and brown sugar, in a small bowl and set aside.

Take the bacon, one strip at a time and start laying it in the bottom of the roasting pan. Start the end of the bacon at the half-way point of the pan, and overlap each slice slightly as you go. Put enough slices down that it will cover your roast from end-to-end.

Take your spice mixture and slather some on the bacon in the bottom of the pan – this way you’ve got that delicious sweetness going all the way around.

Plop the roast in the middle of the pan, on top of the bacon, and use all but maybe a teaspoon or so of the mixture to cover the roast. Make sure you brush every inch of that sucka.

Wrap the bacon around the roast, strip by strip, and tuck it underneath. This way you don’t have to use toothpicks to hold anything in place…which is awesome because I never have the damned things in the house, and honestly, they just slow the slicing and eating process down anyway!

Brush the last of the spice mixture across the top of the bacon-wrapped roast. Now take the brown sugar and sprinkle it along the top of the roast, rub it in and down the sides as well, try to cover as much of the bacon as possible with a thin layer. You don’t want gobs of sugar – just enough to help caramelize your pig-wrapped-pig!

Roast for about an hour, or until your meat thermometer reads 145F. Then get that baby out of the oven! Let it sit for a few, take it out of the roasty-pan and slice ‘er up!

MONTREAL STEAK SPICE

2 tablespoons paprika

2 tablespoons crushed black pepper

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon granulated garlic

1 tablespoon granulated onion

1 tablespoon crushed coriander

1 tablespoon dill

1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes

Mix it all. Store in air-tight container. Om Nom with pork, steak, and other delicious things.